REM Man On The Moon Guitar
Really, really cool tune put together by Michael Stipe, REM. Now, this was of course Man On The Moon, all about Andy Kaufman kind of corky character.
The song came out in 1992 automatic for the people but just the way Michael sings this and it's kind of hypnotic, little simple chord progression, really just going from C to D but you can play the D lots of different ways and if you just play it as a normal D chord, if you just did this and came back to C using kind of the folk strum, it’s going to sound fine. So, that was a measure of C followed by measure of D, followed by two more measure of C. So, this block of four measures is really the name back into the first phrase of the first section. Before it goes in the other sections using all chords in a C and D are in the key of G. So, the other chords in the key of G are what come into play as the song continues, Am and G, chords two and one in the key of G. Finally, after a couple of sets of that, it has a quick G to C to D and that sets us off for the chorus which runs through the same series of chords that does throw in a Bm as well. So here, we have a song that has only five chords in it and they are the first five chords in the key of G, G major, Am, Dm, C, and D. It was both major chords.
One of the things with the lessons that we do at Totally Guitars, I always like to get a little bit of theory involved in there to start getting a little more on the path of learning it on yourself and not just relying on the tablature that you can find or things like that and really relying on your ear more. So, some guys with songs like this, with students, I’ll just give them some hints. Here are the chords, see if you can figure out when they change and then when they stay the same. Sometimes that’s difficult.
Also, when I was playing the melody there, this is something else I like to do with the songs and teach them songs is working on the ways to incorporate the melody in the strumming so that as I was running through this—now that D chord I went to there, I got too just by sliding my C chord or C shape back a whole step and then being kind of careful, this would make a D, I’ve gone from the first, second and third frets to the third, fourth and fifth. But then using what I call focus strumming where I'm just hitting an individual screen or couple of strings to kind of bring out the melody, so this is something that I really like to do and teach in all the stuff that we do at Totally Guitars. So, if you’d like to see a complete lesson on Man On The moon, I would love to do it because this is a great tune and we just have to kind of prioritize songs, we’re going to do lessons four over there.
So, the way to get this done, come check us out, visit us at TotallyGuitars.com, hit the Recommend a Lesson button right there on the homepage and all over all kinds of other pages. And put your requests in there for REM tunes or any other songs by them or anybody else because really what we like to do is see what people are asking for and then jump through the hoops and barrels that we need to to get those lessons out to you. Sometimes it’s difficult, but it definitely helps us guide this. So, we really like to have Totally Guitars kind of run or influence by the community there. So, we really encourage you to come, check us out and if you’re interested in seeing lessons on REM tunes or anything else similar, make sure to hit the Recommend a Lesson button and I hope to see you at TotallyGuitars.com sometimes soon.
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